On December 7 we joined a run to help close the gates on Moody Hill and Old Flowers Road. We met at 9:00 a.m. in the parking lot across from the east entrance to Moody Hill. Five vehicles headed up from the main trailhead, including two Suburbans. I was curious how they would do on the rocky, icy sections, but they made it through without any major issues. Our group of five entered closer to the eastern end, ran up to the quarry, then looped back to meet everyone at a campsite about halfway through Moody Hill. From there, we all headed west and dropped back out to Green Pig, then Buckhorn Road via Crystal Mountain Road.
After that, we ran Old Flowers, then the group split, with some heading to Bald Mountain and the rest of us running Sevenmile. Near the end of Sevenmile there was a big snow drift that one of the Suburbans powered through, breaking trail for everyone else. We were at the back of the group, so the four vehicles ahead of us made it much easier to get through. At the end of the trail, the group repaired a gate that had been broken off its lower hinge. It looked like the hillside had slowly pushed into the hinged side of the gate, and people had tried to force it open against the embankment until the hinge finally gave way. To fix it, the group dug out the gate post, clearing years of packed dirt, then cleaned, prepped, and welded the hinge back together.
I never checked the actual temperature, but it felt like we started in the 30s and dropped into the 20s by the time the gate work wrapped up. We rolled back into Fort Collins around 6:30 p.m. Trail conditions ranged from dry to icy to snow covered, with the most challenging sections toward the end of Sevenmile. This was a fun day out on snow and ice.
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